Feeling sated, cherished and above all happy, Mac did not think to press Harm again to promise not to hurt Webb. And so his conscience was quickly shouted down by his hatred when Harm found himself standing in front of her building two days later. He did not have a plan. He did have a gun.
The door into the apartment was not locked and the place itself was dark and cold. It was also empty. The gun felt heavy in his hand, all the more heavy for being useless. With a curse, he put the safety on it on and stuffed it into the back of his jeans. Then he just stood in the middle of the darkened living room, not knowing what to do. His fury and anger had been growing by the second, ever since his worst fears were confirmed by Mac. Wrapped in her embrace and set on gently loving every little piece of her for the better part of two previous days those gnawing feelings had to be put aside but never left him. He came here to let them out, to let the beasts of hatred and madness devour him, to punish, to avenge, to hurt. Perhaps even to kill. Only the culprit was not present and Harm felt his frustration rising at break-neck speed within him. He needed the release of all that horror before he returned home to Mac. He would not be denied it, at least not all of it.
He switched on the light and looked around. The apartment was possibly even more sterile than before. He could no longer recognize it as the place he had spent so many pleasant evenings, the place where she had lived for so many years and filled it with her presence. The furniture, the pictures on the walls, all of the little things were hers. And yet they did not feel like hers at all in their impersonal sterility.
Suddenly Harm felt the place was full of demons. They were right here, standing perhaps on the same spot he was standing now once. He could see them. There was Coster, writing hideous words on the wall, his hands stained with murder and perversion. There, in another corner, just by the writing desk, stood his victim. Dalton Lowne's innocent expression was belied by his eyes, already stealing secrets that were not his, selling them for his own image, betraying Mac. Right by the door Harm felt the presence of Brumby, all set to go, to leave her behind with her pleading words and teary eyes. How could he? How could any of them? And he may not have even met him, but he knew the man smirking from across the room. Chris Raggle, who would not take no for an answer and brought with him his problems for her to solve. He threatened her and made demands. Simon Tanveer stood by the balcony door, looking unimpressed and uninterested, his mind already spinning the new scheme to trap her and use her. It was really no wonder if Mac was an insomniac. How could she sleep with all the shadows within these walls? How come Harm never realized it before? He had seen her sleeping soundly on CODs, in jeeps and curled up on her side in a desert with bombs falling not far from her. Her troubled sleeping and dreams would usually only haunt her here.
And then there was the new shadow, the largest one, the darkest. Right there, on the floor beside the sofa, where no conference table now stood, because the old one was smashed when she fell through it. Webb. He was not standing, he was no smirking like the others. His eyes were shut in ecstasy. He was thrusting into her. Violating her. Raping her.
With a cry Harm punched the nearest wall.
Enough. ENOUGH.
He knew then he could not just leave. He needed to make a point, a mark for that other man to take notice that he knew now. He knew and this was not over. And that Webb would never own or control her again.
Harm found two of Mac's duffel bags and quickly went through the apartment, packing little things he knew she genuinely loved. Some were already, irretrievably gone, like framed photos of him and her - obvious victims of Webb's manic purge. But some things he managed to find. He pulled three books out of her bookshelf: the Quran, which her grandmother had given her, the Bible, gifted to her by her uncle and a tattered old copy of Jane Eyre, which Mac had admitted once to stealing as a kid from the school library because she loved the story so much and her father would never buy her books. All of the dinosaur bones were gone, but he snatched the leather pouch holding all of the brushes and other instruments she would use to clean them. A small white box which held little AJ's baptismal shoes was added to the bag as well as the collection of her service ribbons and medals. He was extremely relieved to find that Webb had yet to go through her albums, packing all three of them. Mac was not big on photographs. There were a few of her childhood and even fewer from her school days. It was only later that she began to catalogue the important events and people in pictures, but even then she never felt the need to capture everything on camera.
Harm was apprehensive about taking any of her clothes but eventually decided Mac could choose whether or not to keep them and so he snatched two of her favourite summer dresses, a woollen jumper and a pair of shoes from her closet. Finally, he grabbed a beautiful silver hand-mirror and hairbrush. Webb had obviously had no idea this particular set was sent to Mac by Trish Burnett for Christmas that year she had followed her son to Russia for the first time.
With the bags safely deposited in his car, Harm returned upstairs one more time. Except now it was not to salvage but to destroy everything he could, short of burning the place down. Everything that screamed Webb and no longer felt like Mac had to go.
He tossed all of Webb's clothes out of the closet and drawers, leaving all of them open and even completely taken out. He stripped the bed of what were clearly completely new sheets and added them to the pile. Pillows. Mac said he pushed her face into the pillow as he raped her. Bringing a knife out of the kitchen Harm savagely ripped out every pillow he could find, the white feathers whirling wildly in the air and settling on the floor and every available surface like a snowstorm. In the kitchen, he opened up every cupboard. He knew Mac's mugs and plates and glasses. She tended to buy one or two, hardly ever a whole set, and many of her mugs were actually chipped. Now everything inside the cupboards was distinctively uniform. To muffle the sound and prevent neighbours from calling the cops should they be alarmed he threw all of the new Webb-bought dishes onto the pile of clothes and sheets and only then violently stomping onto them, listening with relish to the cracks and screams of porcelain and glass. The shards, in turn, cut through the fabric surrounding them, ruining the suits, the shirts and underwear.
Still raging, Harm nearly tore the handle of the fridge when he discovered there was hardly any food but cans of beer and bottles of wine. He found alcohol in other places as well. Instead of dumping it all down the drain he opened every single bottle and poured it all over what was left of the clothes.
There was no logic to where he went or what he did. He moved frantically, quickly, almost without thinking, working off the frustration and anger the best he could. He turned over the sofa and the table, he smudged the soot from the fireplace all over the mantle. In the bathroom, he found a whole box neatly filled with various make-up things, most of which he had no idea about, but they were all sealed. All new. All Webb-bought. He tore off the caps and squeezed out the tubes, broke off the tips and threw everything into the toilet. Flushing it, he caused the bowl to fill and overflow. Good.
It was only then that he found the real treasure.
Mac had told him Webb was doing drugs, but he did not expect to find nearly 2 pounds of cocaine in small packets, orderly, neatly lined up in one of the bathroom drawers. He was stunned for a minute or two, just staring.
If he called the police now, how would he explain that the drugs were in Mac's apartment, which he had just trashed? They would either think this stash was hers or that it was his and he had just had a rage-attack trying to look for it. There was no possibility to tie Webb to this. So no police.
Then Harm smiled.
Promptly, he turned on both the faucets in the bathtub, waiting a few minutes for it to fill almost completely. Then he proceeded to rip the packets apart, one by one, drowning the white powder in the lukewarm water. Then he finally left, the plastic packets, torn to shreds, lying tellingly next to a tub full of murky water.
Only when he got back outside did Harm take a deep breath. It was as if he had emerged from another world entirely. But it was not time to let all of the anger sleep.
He had one more place to be.
He felt exhausted and tired more than angry by the point he arrived at Meg's building, but he still pounded on the door with all his might. Thrice, because there seemed to be no answer. Several neighbours have opened their own doors a little, just to see who was causing the ruckus, and Harm was doubly glad he had trashed Mac's... no... Webb's apartment before he came here. He was sure at least one person was already contemplating calling the cops. He pounded on the door again.
It opened.
He was confused.
There was nobody there.
"Harm!"
His eyes flew down. There, standing in front of him but not in his previous line of sight, was Georgie. She was smiling and freckles were dancing over her cute nose.
"Mum didn't say you were coming. Sorry for taking so long, we have the radio on in the kitchen. We are baking chocolate chip cookies. Do you like those? I like blueberry muffins more, but Jacob won the coin toss." She frowned at that last sentence, but already he felt her little hand taking his own and pulling him into the door.
"You and Jacob are here," he said in a strangled voice. It was not a question. Georgie cocked her head to the side curiously.
"In the flesh," she said importantly and was happy she could use the expression she had recently learned, though Harm seemed rather absent-minded all fo a sudden.
"I... I shouldn't have come," he said then more to himself than to Georgie, whose confusion was quickly growing.
"We have cookies!" she repeated as is he was a little boy and she a grown-up. Was that not reason enough for staying? And why come if one would leave immediately?
Harm seemed not to hear her though and already had his hand on the doorknob when another voice called out to him.
"Harm?"
He turned back. There she was. Meg Austin. Meg Hartley. The woman who was supposed to be his friend. There she was - whole, healthy, unharmed and so very pretty with a smudge of flour on her left cheek, wiping her hands into a towel hastily. Georgie decided to run into the kitchen where Jacob now added his voice to the song on the radio.
"I am so glad you came," Meg managed to say after a moment. She seemed friendly enough, but her eyes were unable to meet his burning gaze. "I... I feel that I deserve you an apology and I was rather unsure of how to go about it."
"Me?" he returned with a scornful scoff. "You do not need to apologize to me. There is someone else you have ambushed and insulted. Somebody you sold out. Why don't you go and apologize to her?"
Her face went completely pale.
"Won't you sit down?" she tried but he never moved. She remained standing as well, more and more uncomfortable with each passing second. She had known some confrontation would come. She had anticipated it. Just not like this. He looked angry and dejected.
"I don't get it, Meg," he said finally. "I thought we were friends."
"We are friends," she argued. "We are more than friends, Harm. You know how I feel about you."
"Do I? What you have done I wouldn't expect from some of my worst enemies."
"I am not proud of what I said," Meg defended herself, finding her passion. "I don't know the Colonel and I shouldn't have projected my insecurities on her. But is that really so unforgivable? Or not understandable? Would you expect me to just sit by instead of fighting for the man I love?"
"Stop it. Stop saying that!" he snapped at her. "You don't love me. You don't know me. You think you love somebody I used to be almost nine years ago. And let me tell you I have changed. I am not the same person anymore."
"No, you are better," she argued. "How am I supposed to just tell myself that the feeling that has almost led me to terminate my career and later added to me quitting my marriage is just some fancy? No, Harm. I do love you. And I have a lot I can offer you. I just ask for you to give me a chance!"
"This is not... I don't... All of this is beside the point!" he burst out. "Do you even realize what you have done? Because to me, it seems you don't!"
"What is it then, that I have done, that is so terrible?" she demanded. Georgie and Jacob both were now singing at the top of their voice with the radio, something about "being a freak like me" and "dontcha", adding to the unreal feeling of the conversation. Harm even had to wonder for a second whether Meg had anticipated his coming and conjured the children up to fend him off. He was never going to hurt her, but with the kids in the apartment, he could not even shout. He did not want them to be scared.
"You have betrayed me. You have betrayed Mac!" he hissed through his teeth.
"I have made no promises of any kind to this Mac," she insisted. "How did I betray her? By pointing out to her what she was doing to you? Harm, do you even see how she is using your own weakness and her similarity to Dianne to keep you on a string?"
"What the hell are you talk..."
"I have asked. I have asked around the office," she said decisively. "You two have had the strangest working relationship imaginable. Can't you see she is obviously somebody who thrives on male attention and you are the reliable guy she can string along when other guys are not available? Webb believes it was you who sabotaged her relationships, but I can understand better, I think. He is in love with her, wants to see her in the best possible light. But in fact, she just cannot help herself and you are an easy victim. She is hurting you, Harm. I have never seen you so broken up over anyone, not even your father! It is time for her to leave your place and return to her actual boyfriend."
Harm opened his mouth to speak several times but no sound came out. The fury he had left over the tub full of dissolving cocaine was building up again. But there were the children. He had to think about the children.
"You know what, Commander," he said finally, using her rank because he did not feel like calling her by her actual name. "Contrary to what you may believe I am not obliged to explain anything to you. Keep your nose out of my business and especially out of my life, where it is not wanted. We will see each other at work, which is unfortunately a necessity at this point, but that is all. Just so you know Webb, your actual new best friend, is a pathological liar addicted to cocaine, who raped Mac without mercy when she showed him the door. And you told him where she is, you stirred up every nightmare she still keeps having by your sanctimonious preaching. Keep your kids and yourself away from him, that is the best advice I can give you. And no, don't tell me you are sorry," he halted her, seeing she was training to speak. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to have anything to do with you outside work, and if possible, not even there."
The children in the kitchen stopped singing and were now in the middle of some argument. Georgie was obviously loosing, considering her voice was getting louder and whinier with every word. Meg stood like a statue, unable to form a thought.
Almost out of the door, Harm turned to her once more.
"Has it ever occurred to you that the reason why I was, I am so broken up over Mac and what happened to her might be because I genuinely, truly love her? Because I do. She is my life. It hurts to breathe when she isn't near me. You have no right to claim any of that love from me. So don't."
Meg sank into the sofa, her elbows on her knees, her face burning with shame. She burst into tears, letting the children shout in the kitchen over slowly burning cookies in the oven.
